02/03/2006

The latest feature film by popular Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, After The Wedding, made history last weekend for its production company, Zentropa Entertainment. The film was released last Friday by Nordisk Film on 67 sreens and sold over 54,000 tickets over the weekend, the highest admissions ever registered by Zentropa for an opening weekend.

After The Wedding is Bier’s seventh feature and her third successful collaboration with scriptwriter Anders Thomas Jensen, after Open Hearts [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2002) and Brothers [+see also:
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film profile] (2004), two films that garnered, respectively, over 506,493 and 429,000 admissions in Denmark.

After The Wedding sees Jacob Petersen (Mads Mikkelsen) playing a man who has dedicated his life to helping street children in India. When the orphanage he heads is threatened by closure, he receives an unusual offer: Danish businessman Jørgen offers him a $4m donation, with certain conditions attached… Not only must Jacob return to Denmark, but he must also take part in Jørgen’s daughter’s wedding, which proves to be a critical juncture between Jacob’s past and present. Other leading actors in the film include Sidse Babett Knudsen, who starred in Bier’s The One and Only (1999), and Swedish star actor Rolf Lassgård.

The film was produced for €3m by Sisse Graum Jorgensen for Zentropa Entertainment, in co-production with After The Wedding Ltd/Sigma Films III in the UK, in co-operation with Danish Television DR and Swedish broadcaster SVT, and with support from the Danish Film Institute and the Nordic Film & TV Fund.

Trust Film Sales has already sold it to several territories, including the US (IFC), Canada (Seville Pictures), Italy (Teodora Films), Greece (Rosebud), Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegr,o and Macedonia (AG Market). The film is a potential entry for the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.